


I Put A Spell On You

by plastic_cello



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Explicit Language, F/M, Female!Bucky, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 04:53:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2415674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastic_cello/pseuds/plastic_cello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Holy shit, he's a babe!" Clint blurted out. "Loki made your terrifying robo-assassin of a friend into a total babe!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue :: In Which Magic Happens

**Author's Note:**

> I have to give thanks to lostloveloki; she gave me this brilliant idea, and I had to run with it. It was too fun not to. :)

* * *

 

**Prologue :: In Which Magic Happens**

 

* * *

 

_I put a spell on you because you're mine._

 

* * *

 

It happened so suddenly. There wasn't any time to react. One moment Steve was charging across the cracked asphalt with the shield at the ready, and the next he was thrown into a nearby SUV by the sheer force of a magical spell.

His back hit the side of the vehicle with a dull thud, as the city street was enveloped in a blinding green light that was synonymous with their current opponent. Loki had unwittingly returned to Earth; wreaking havoc for weeks on end, although he hadn't attempted to enslave humanity like last time. If anything, he was only a nuisance that caused millions of dollars' worth of property damage and plenty of grief for the city of New York.

Somehow today Steve had been brought into the fray. He had taken an official sabbatical from the Avengers and had offered his teammates Sam in his place. While the arrangement had been rather successful up until this point, he was still needed in some capacity. Case in point currently when Loki decided to strike in the heart of Manhattan, and cause an innumerable amount of damage in a matter of minutes.

The strike couldn't have come at a worse time either. Steve had been in the middle of an emotional monologue, in hopes of unearthing long since lost memories in Bucky's head. It was only recently that he'd gotten Bucky back; although it was only a fragment of his best friend. But that didn't mean he wasn't determined to help Bucky recover into a functioning, self-sufficient member of society again.

Unfortunately, that seemed unlikely to happen when Bucky demanded to come along to stop Loki's destruction. In fact, Bucky had reverted into the methodical, ice cold Winter Soldier as soon as he stepped onto the scene; which had Steve's fellow Avengers holding their breath. Well, Tony in particular anyway.

As Steve crumbled unceremoniously to the street; the light cleared away slowly. His eyes took several moments to adjust, but nothing seemed to be remotely destroyed. Yes, the former damage was still visible; yet there wasn't anything new. The asphalt was still cracked and crumbling and several windows had been blown out of the surrounding buildings but there wasn't anything else to behold.

"Is everyone okay?" He asked into his earpiece.

"Blind as a bat for about twenty seconds," Tony replied, soon followed by the rest of the team's affirmatives. The Hulk roared somewhere nearby, which was all the reassurance Steve needed.

Loki had disappeared sometime during the light show. It was probably a means of escape, rather than a ploy to cause further destruction. That seemed to be the god's MO of late; cause mayhem and disappear then repeat days or even weeks later for his own amusement.

"Cap, we have a problem." Clint announced in a stoic voice over the line.

"What's that?" He climbed to his feet with a bit of a stagger; that collision did hurt and he'd feel it for the rest of the day.

"I think Loki's pyrotechnics were targeted at one of us, you know instead of the group of us."

"Everyone's accounted for, Clint. What are you talking about?"

"Everyone with an earpiece, you mean." Clint returned, before Steve's mind caught up rather abruptly.

Horror rippled and bloomed in the center of Steve's chest. Bucky hadn't been wearing an ear piece; his involvement had been an impromptu decision. There hadn't been any time for equipment to be passed around accordingly. Bucky had been on the outside of their strategy and that had been awfully dangerous all within itself. And now this revelation was the worst case scenario.

Rushing towards the coordinates Clint conveyed to him, Steve arrived within minutes of the communication. His heart was pounding in his throat, as he halted only feet away from where Clint was standing. Clint's bow was still in hand and he was covered in grime just like Steve was; he lifted his eyes at his approach and there was already an apology on his lips.

Steve did want to hear it, though. There was no way he could have lost Bucky now; not when he had barely gotten him back. They'd been apart for seventy years; separated by ice and time and HYDRA, and Loki wasn't going to take his best friend away from him now that they found one another again. He wouldn't let him.

As he approached the scene, his stomach dropped. Amid the broken pieces of glass and rubble was Bucky or what was left of him. His clothes, the Winter Soldier's uniform, lay in a heap with no sign of Bucky anywhere in sight.

"Listen, Cap," Clint lifted a hand, as if he wanted to ward Steve away.

"No,"

"We'll get him. This time he isn't going back to Asgard. Over my dead body,"

"Bucky, _no_ ," Steve moved past Clint, crumbling immediately to the ground beside the remnants of his friend. "No, no, no, not now; not after everything,"

"What's going on?" Natasha broke in over the connection suddenly. "Clint, what's up?"

"Not now," Clint returned in a stern tone. "That includes you, Stark."

The communication between his teammates was lost to Steve. His world was slowly crashing in on itself. Whatever hope he had had in the future was destroyed; broken into a hundred little pieces just because Loki had a compulsion to cause mischief and mayhem for the hell of it.

"Bucky, Christ," Steve cried out, as his throat began to tighten painfully. He reached for the crumpled clothing; the leather and velcro that had once been his best friend, and curled his fingers around something solid.

Tears prickled his eyes; it must have been the arm HYDRA had fitted Bucky with. He clutched it harder in distress and fury, but was immediately taken aback by the movement that followed. Withdrawing his hand, he looked up at Clint whose expression was nothing short of confused; before he returned his gaze to Bucky's clothing.

Whatever was inside the fabric was moving around still; slow and languid, and eventually more prominent. Clint took a step back and reached for an arrow from the quiver across his back, and aimed it at the pile of clothes with single-minded concentration.

"What the hell is it?" Clint asked tersely just as a wave of chocolate colored hair popped out of the collar of Bucky's vest.

"Don't shoot!" Steve lifted his arm, although it wouldn't necessarily be the greatest barrier to protect whatever was inside Bucky's clothes against Clint's marksmanship.

Gradually, the _thing_ squirmed around enough to be seen. Both Steve and Clint made surprised noises at what had appeared, and it made very little sense whatsoever. What had Loki done?

"Bucky," he whispered and was met with steely blue eyes, fringed by long, dark eyelashes.

"Steve, what happened?" Bucky asked in a feminine but still very emotionless voice.

"Holy shit, he's a babe!" Clint blurted out. "Loki made your terrifying robo-assassin of a friend into a total babe!"

Words failed Steve completely. There was no denying the fact that it was Bucky; those eyes were all the proof he needed. But the face he'd known so well was now soft and round, almost as delicate as a porcelain doll's; and the hair was longer and wavier than Bucky's hair had been even as the Winter Soldier.

"It'll be okay, Buck." He managed to say, despite knowing how wrong things actually were. "You'll be fine, but the thing is you're a woman right now."


	2. Chapter One :: Now We Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, I'm attempting to feel out how to write Steve. I think I have a better understanding of him since viewing the Winter Soldier than I had before. So I'm trying to draw from that; I can only hope I'm doing him justice.
> 
> Also, I believe I'll be writing from Bucky's perspective soon enough, but mostly things will be told from Steve's point of view.
> 
> And I'll have to point out that I intentionally bounced in between pronouns when it came to Bucky.

* * *

 

**Chapter One :: Now We Wait**

 

* * *

 

Tony's workshop was a place of marvels. Steve hadn't been formally invited into the sleek, high-tech Mecca beforehand; and well, he'd only been begrudgingly allowed inside since he refused to leave Bucky's side. And he would stay rooted to the spot until there was a feasible way to reverse the damage Loki had caused.

Nothing had been forthcoming from what he observed. Tony and Bruce had checked Bucky's vitals, conversed in their medical and scientific jargon for long stretches of time; before they argued half-heartedly and then settled on observing Bucky like a sideshow attraction.

"Do you have any ideas yet?" Steve asked, while trying to direct his eyes anywhere but on Bucky.

"This is beyond our expertise. Magic is on an entirely different plane of understanding. I suppose with years worth of research, we'd inevitably find a correlation between science and supernatural properties. But we're a long way from that." Bruce tapped his thumb against his bottom lip in thought. "Hopefully this is temporary; maybe in a day or so the spell will weaken and Sergeant Barnes will turn back to normal."

"But it might not fade either!" Tony intervened. "You might be stuck this way forever, Elsa the frost queen."

With the speed of a viper, Bucky's cybernetic arm (that had been shrunk to size) shot out and grabbed Tony by the front of the tee-shirt. Steve hadn't any other choice but to look at Bucky now. He, _she_ looked as cool and collected as always; except for a spark of intensity that ran through his, _her_ eyes.

"Do you find this amusing? Do not take my smaller stature lightly."

"Bucky, let him go!"

"Tony, don't even say it." Bruce warned, as if he already predicted what his fellow scientist was about to say.

For several tense moments, Bucky held onto Tony and seemed reserved to stay that way until she had gotten reassurance that he'd try everything to turn her back to normal. In the end, she let go of him in disgust and crossed her arms across her impressive bosom. It wasn't like Steve had noticed or anything. But if he had, it was because of Bucky's current lack of clothing.

Natasha had gone to rummage through her wardrobe half an hour earlier, in order to find something more appropriate for Bucky to wear; instead of the Jimi Hendrix tee-shirt Tony had given her. It was far too large for her and kept sliding off one shoulder then the next. Yet it was the only thing that Tony had, since he claimed if he even so much as touched Pepper's clothing another Great War would occur.

Something told Steve otherwise, though. He greatly suspected Tony's previous reputation hadn't exactly been absolved since he'd settled into domesticity with Pepper. And it was hard to deny how striking Bucky was as a woman; although Bucky had always been striking, even if Steve wasn't one to say that out loud.

"You need to take this seriously, Tony." Steve said.

"It's kind of hard to take this seriously, Cap. Your best buddy's a woman now. And honestly, I'm stumped on how to turn him back; he might end up like this forever." Tony smoothed the front of his tee-shirt. "So you two can finally have your storybook ending; the two point five kids, a golden retriever, a white picket fence with the American flag waving in the breeze. The American dream you guys went to war for."

It was to be expected that Tony would make inappropriate jokes at the worst possible time imaginable. Sam had said it was a way for Tony to cope. People had weird ways of coping with situations, and Tony's happened to only exacerbate things further. Steve had tried to be understanding, especially after Loki's first arrival on the planet; however, he couldn't control his temper currently.

Bucky had been through enough already. HYDRA had harmed him and used him as a weapon for decades. They stripped him of his identity and made him less than human. There wasn't anything funny about that. And there definitely wasn't anything funny about what Loki had done to him.

His pent-up anger overflowed inside of Steve, and caused him to strike out. He grabbed Tony by the shirt with both hands; he shook him several times, as if that would somehow rattle some common sense into his head. But his former experience with the same gene pool didn't seem otherwise possible.

"Listen here, Stark; this isn't a joke! It's not funny and if you can't see that then I'll find someone who'll treat it seriously!" He gritted out each word. "Bucky has been through seventy years of hell! He'd been used and abused and treated less than human! He was barely given the opportunity to be his own person again, and that _jackass_ took it away from him! So if you laugh or treat this any less than serious, you'll regret it! Do you understand me?"

"Loud and clear," Tony returned and raised his hands in surrender. "Calm down, Cap; a little joke hasn't hurt anyone. Besides do you really think I'd let some kind of magical anomaly go unsolved? Not on my watch."

Just as Bucky had done only moments ago, Steve freed Tony with a final violent shake. Despite his threat, he knew that Tony was his best bet to reversing Loki's spell; particularly if it didn't wear off on its own. There weren't many people who he could turn to. SHIELD had fallen to the wayside and Nick Fury was on the lamb somewhere. So Tony was his only hope.

Who else had access to highly sophisticated technology and could use it, no less invented it but Tony? There was no one else Steve could turn to, and he would be damned if he allowed Bucky to suffer any more than he already had because Tony could be a pain in the ass.

"Don't worry, Buck. We're going to figure this out." Steve returned to Bucky's side, and placed a reassuring hand on his, _her_ shoulder.

Physical contact was still a tricky subject between them. After all, Bucky had only officially resurfaced seven weeks ago with snippets of his former life at the forefront of his mind. They were far from a companionable place as of yet; and this incident was bound to only stall their progress and Bucky's recovery on top of it all.

God only knew what Bucky was going through at the moment. They hadn't had any time to psychoanalyze the situation, and it seemed like Bucky was in shell shock. Then again who wouldn't be if they were turned into the opposite gender within the blink of an eye?

His hand lingered a little too long on Bucky's shoulder it seemed, because he was soon met with an icy stare that put everything back into perspective. He pulled his hand back and felt his stomach tighten. Tony's stupid comment hadn't gone unnoticed by him, although he tried to ignore it as much as possible.

In the darkest, almost unreachable part of his mind; Steve remembered a moment in the late thirties when that peculiar thought arose. It might have been the end of '38, if memory served him right on a crisp autumn evening; after another botched double date. Bucky had ditched his date just like his date's best girlfriend ditched Steve.

Bucky had been dismissive of the whole debacle; prattling on incessantly about how those dames weren't worth their weight in gold if they couldn't see how great Steve really was. And that's when the thought hit Steve; if only Bucky was a dame then everything would be okay. Steve would have married Bucky right then and there if he could have.

But that was a long time ago, way before Peggy; way before the idea of same-sex marriage was ever a possibility. Things were different back then. They were different people back then, and none of those feelings applied to the modern day either.

"So where do we go from here?" Steve regained his composure, purposely turning his eyes away once the tee-shirt slipped down and exposed Bucky's shoulder again.

"Tony has some video of the incident-"

"Thank you, JARVIS."

"So we'll try and analyze it; maybe we can compare it to other videos involving our previous encounters with Loki." Bruce explained. "Any information is good information. But in this case, we're going to keep our fingers crossed and hope it's only a temporary condition."

"And if it's not?"

"Our best bet is Rock of Ages himself." Tony reached forward to resituate the tee-shirt on Bucky's shoulder, although he didn't get very far. Bucky slapped his hand away and from the sound of it, hard enough to hurt too.

"Hands to yourself, Tony," Steve glared.

"Ow, was that really necessary?"

"Next time you will lose the hand." Bucky narrowed her eyes.

Before the situation could escalate any further than it already had in the past twenty minutes, the tension was broken by the return of Natasha via the elevator. She walked out, carrying a neatly folded stack of clothing in her arms; small enough for someone of Bucky's current build.

If Natasha noticed the offended look on Tony's face, she didn't acknowledge it. She walked up to Bucky, who'd been positioned on top of a workbench and offered him, _her_ a non-threatening smile. Steve knew there was a history between them, although he didn't know the extent of it; and quite frankly he didn't know if he wanted to know.

"Judging from your stature, I think you'll be able to fit into my clothes." Natasha set the pile beside Bucky on the table. "You've probably got a couple of inches on me, but this is a temporary solution. And it's better than wearing Stark's ratty old tee-shirt."

Tony scoffed in offense, before he beckoned Bruce away into another portion of the workshop to discuss things that would probably go over everyone else's heads. Steve didn't care, so long as they were actively trying to reverse the spell as soon as possible. The semantics didn't mean a thing to him, and he assumed Bucky felt the same way.

This wasn't how things were supposed to happen. Once Bucky came to him, they were supposed to work on recovering his memories, and working towards recovery. Sam had offered his assistance too; he knew better than anyone else that there was a lot of emotional trauma that Bucky had to sort through before recovery even became an option.

No one really understood how detrimental this whole debacle could be to Bucky's psyche. He was already fragile from the constant abuse he received from HYDRA, and it was only exacerbated by him finally realizing who he was a lifetime ago. Now he was being thrown through another identity crisis.

"There's a bathroom over there." Natasha motioned towards one side of the workshop, beyond a fumbling robot that was trying to sweep at the already pristine floor.

Bucky nodded curtly in response and hopped down from the table. She was much shorter than usual; she couldn't have been any taller than five-six if that. Her hair wound down her back and looked in need of a good brushing, which Steve figured Natasha would help with. Or so he hoped anyway.

Bucky gathered up the clothing provided to her and walked quietly across the room. Steve watched her go with curiosity, and felt his face heat up when he realized how little clothing she truly was wearing. Woman or not, Steve hadn't any right to stare at his best friend like that.

Ashamed, he looked down at his feet and listened half-heartedly to the scientific back and forth taking place between Bruce and Tony. From what he could understand, it didn't seem like they were any closer to a resolution than they were when they first arrived in the workshop. Everything was theoretical at that point.

"Obviously this is a prank," Natasha spoke up. "If Loki wanted to be malicious, he would have just killed him. So I highly doubt this will be permanent, especially since Loki won't be able to see all the hilarious misunderstandings that'll happen because of it. Keep your chin up, Steve."

"I've only gotten him back, you know. He isn't in the best place right now. He won't be anywhere near okay for years, if what Sam says is true."

"I understand your concern, and I understand why you'd love to bash Loki's face in. But you have to be optimistic for James's sake."

"James, no one calls him James." Steve shot Natasha a wary look. Natasha, for her part, didn't so much as bat an eye in return.

There were still plenty of gray areas in Bucky's history that Steve hadn't uncovered yet. Ultimately, he had decided to allow Bucky to reveal whatever bits of his past that he wanted to once he recovered all of (or most of) his memories. He'd already pried enough and learned too many horrific things to continue down that pathway.

Several minutes passed, before Bucky reemerged fully dressed. Natasha had provided her with a gray hooded sweater, a blue tee-shirt, a pair of jeans, and white socks. Her hair was more of a bird's nest than it had been beforehand; which seemed like a trait attributed to the Winter Soldier. Seeing as the old Bucky had been overly concerned about his appearance; he could spend hours in front of a mirror styling and fussing over his hair until it was perfect.

"For now, I don't think we'll have to worry about an entire wardrobe. Shoes maybe, but I didn't want to risk bringing something that wouldn't fit him."

"Don't you mean her?" Tony supplied in the midst of pulling up familiar footage of Loki from the battle of New York on a holographic screen. "Biologically speaking, Cap's good 'ol sidekick is a woman now."

"I am not a woman." Bucky grunted softly.

"Unless you have anything else you need, I'll be taking Bucky home."

"Nothing at the moment, but we'll call you if we think of something." Bruce lifted his hand in a goodbye.

"We'll keep in touch." Steve nodded, before he tapped Bucky on the arm, and moved towards the elevator.

Bucky followed him without any further prompting, and Natasha did the same. Maybe she didn't trust him alone with Bucky. Or maybe she didn't trust Bucky alone with him. Either way, it appeared as if they became a trio that was headed for his apartment in Brooklyn. And all they could do was bid their time for now.


End file.
